This series is currently a bit of a tease and I am unsure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It almost seems as if Mika, Akihiro, and the rest of Tekkadan would really go full force against the Mobile Armour in an arena-like battle this episode, nevermind Macky and Isurugi against Vidar/Galli-Galli. Yet nope, Tekkadan is relegated to strategery once again this episode, thanks to an unanticipated safety precaution in the Gundam Frames, and Vidar instead leaves, delaying the face off against Macky for another time, but not without making his existence known to him. In fact the true final battle with the Mobile Armour will take place next week, alongside the results of its fallout.
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Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 11 – MAGA
Before I allow you all to kick my ass for such an article title, that’s shorthand for:
Mobile
Armours’re
Great
Again
When was the last time a massive mobile suit/mobile armour in a Gundam series generated such a sense of ominous dread? I mean yeah, Build Fighters had the Giant Zaku, but nobody was gonna die from that; Gundam SEED Destiny had an alright thing going with the Destroy before it became a mass-produced grunt unit alongside other Earth Alliance MAs; Ein was only fine in the first season of this; and Gundam Age.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 10 – Demons on Mars
Just when I think the episode will play as one big gigantic battle on Mars where Tekkadan and Macky get one big bloody nose, the series drops on the lore. Then, in lieu of an omnipresent narrator aware of past history (the one heard these days in the prologue only goes so far as last week), we have the characters in the show world building for us again. It has been a while since it dropped some major points in the past during the Calamity War, so what occurs in this episode must be welcomed with open arms.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 07 – Catharsis
Now this is the kind of balls to the wall action I wanted around the time of episode 3. The intensity and great choreography is there, but more importantly it has the emotional core and tension I thought was missing in the space battle. The initial fight, which had Maccy go up against Takaki and Aston, and be BESTED by both of them is a very good affair, and almost had me think at the time how he would taken down a peg and set back a few spaces by injury, capture, or maybe death.
Alas though, the timely rescue by Mika and the rest of the Tekkadan crew puts the kibosh on those developments. This is fine, as well as their victory over Galan and his mercenaries. Battles where losses are sustained and they only get out of it by the skin of their teeth make for the right kind of excitement and entertainment. After all the foreshadowing in the past few episodes, we now see who dies in this one: Aston. Predictable to be sure (although I was certain Takaki would die too), but his death is handled well. There is a bit of similarity here to how Akihiro tried to save Masahiro after being taking a fatal blow, but it shows how old habits of broken Human Debris die hard even after the first season. All that resentment, all that reconditioning to feel after being told not to for so long, gets to a person. However, Takaki and Aston part on good terms.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 06 – Battle of The Plains of Alberta
Like the Edmonton battle before it, the battle in this episode starts in media res, taking place two weeks after the events that transpired in the previous show. Unfortunately for Takaki, Aston, and the rest of the Earth-based Tekkadan members, they’re smack dab in the kind of warfare they are not familiar with. It turns out I was wrong last week when I said the bearded man is another name for Kamen Galli-Galli, but the guy who’s now heading Tekkadan’s battle operations, Galan Mossa.
Brilliant strategery abounds this episode, and well-timed since it gives the audience something to look forward to in terms of tension, and stops the series from becoming an Orga-y of Maccinations (I regret nothing). You do feel for Takaki and Aston, who despite doing their best, are still completely unaware they are being played by Galan. The man uses throughout this episode psychological conditioning to subvert the chain of command, carrot-and-sticking them into constant battles. It’s one thing if Tekkadan were a bunch of younger to middle-aged adults, but now their success is being used against them. It’s one thing to be manipulated while being young and poor, but what happens when you’re in a position of power? Shit’s getting awful and you just know it whenever Takaki and Aston opine in this episode. I’m finding Galan and Radice to be MUCH worse than Maccy. Sure what Maccy has done and is going to do is horrible, but then again at the same time Rustal and the rest of Gjallarhorn are just as bad as he is, if not worse. Plus Radice is a spiteful little man who betrays Tekkadan not out of some desire (misguided or not) to reform it, but of envy, and that’s always the worst kind of betrayal.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 05 – Cool Hand Chad
I do believe what we have here is a “failure to communicate” on this week’s episode. It is not just the distance between Mars and Earth that Tekkadan has to struggle with, it is also the fact they’re still fairly innocent about the world. Oh don’t get me wrong, their lives sucked before they started wearing the big boy pants, yet this impacting line by Takaki defines what I believe will be a prevailing arc this season:
“What will happen if we can’t even trust family?”
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 04 – Martian Half-Metal Futures
Ah, it is nice to finally have something to talk about now. By the skin of their teeth, Tekkadan captures the leader of the Dawn Horizon Corps, and routs the attempt by the WDoJ/Arianrhod from stealing their ‘kill’ so to speak. This is a sound victory on Tekkadan’s part, since the inclusion of a third party in the previous episode’s affairs heightens the tension. This is most manifest in Julieta, who not only gives Mika a workout in terms of combat skills, but also comes off (in my mind), as a female version of him: eccentric to a fault, and fiercely loyal to her superior like Mika is to Orga. Whether this will change any dynamic between him, Kudelia, and Atra in the case he ever meets her is still up in the air, but I cannot help but see some similarities to them based on their disposition in combat.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 03 – Yo-Ho-Hum
After two episodes of build up, we have our first full on space battle with Tekkadan facing off against the Dawn Horizon Corps. True to Gundam form, things are not what they appear, and Tekkadan has to fight at a disadvantage.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
Not gonna lie, I am REALLY hard pressed to talk about anything this week. It is not that there is anything TOO bad about this episode, but there’s nothing new to discuss. After my gush over Hush last week, he is summarily sidelined for plot purposes as the old boys of Tekkadan sally forth. Understandable, but it is still disappointing. The big non-mecha highlight is the conversation between Orga and Maccy’s subordinate, Isurugi. It provides a nice set up to the battle, never mind the various machinations each side (or at least Maccy-nations for one) has in store, but other than that nothing much can be said. Heck to even say the battles are nice is to state the obvious, and Tekkadan as always is doing the best it can given the circumstances.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 02 – Groundwork Grind
Just like the second episode of the first season, the opening ends with a successful rout of enemy forces by Mika and the Barbatos…
…And just like the second episode of the first season, the rest of the episode is dedicated to prep work for the next phase in our players’ games. On one hand it is kinda boring treading familiar territory, but on the other it is kindof necessary and has enough differences to warrant this retreading of old ground. One half-hour after all isn’t enough for a massive cast like this animu has, so I should probably give it a pass for now. Besides, it allows us one instance of foreboding that may colour erryboddy in this show:
The Vision of Escaflowne Episode 26 [FINAL] – Fate, Hope, and Love (Or: Raise you up on Angel’s Wings)
And now it is time to say goodbye.
It turns out Folken’s kill of Dornkirk had some intended consequences after all in the latter’s part, serving as a dead man’s switch to turn the Zone of Absolute Fortune online. Now, in ghost form, (which is weird since he’s an Earthling, I guess his will was strong enough to exist as a spectre), Isaac/Dornkirk observes with Hitomi the effects of his final gambit. What is it? Makes everybody’s wishes come true.
Unfortunately for everybody, it has them act upon the emotion they are in at the current moment. So it means all these kingdoms which appeared in the last few episodes want to conquer one another now, dissolving their alliance by way of bloodshed. While they do such, we see how Isaac/Dornkirk takes it: in scientific dispassion. Here is a man so wedded to ending conflict by any means necessary, that he will write off wanton slaughter if this is the inevitable result of his actions. Far cry from the Atlanteans, who at least give warnings and seal away powers in an attempt to not let history repeat itself. It seems like reason awake does not stave off the monsters they say its slumber would bring. No complaints here at this overarching threat in the last part of the endgame, for it is within our foe’s character and rationale.